LI Police Officer Indicted For Making False Statement: DA

RIVERSIDE, NY — A Long Island police officer has been indicted for filing a false report in support of a criminal complaint charging a man with resisting arrest after chasing him in a stolen Jeep, prosecutors said Thursday.

Matthew Cameron, a 33-year-old officer from Commack who had been on the force since 2014, has been charged with second-degree offering a false instrument for filing, a misdemeanor, according to Suffolk County District Attorney Tim Sini’s office. Cameron was “temporarily suspended” in March after the incident, his office said.

A Special Grand Jury was empaneled in Suffolk County to investigate the circumstances surrounding the Feb. 24 arrest of Christopher Cruz who was seen on bodycam footage being kicked and later sued the department for violating his civil rights. The Grand Jury found “reasonable cause to believe Cameron made a false sworn statement in support of a criminal complaint charging Cruz with resisting arrest,” which was filed in First District Court in Central Islip, Sini’s office said.

The resisting arrest charge was dismissed in June.

The DA’s office gathered evidence from numerous sources, including 34 witnesses and reviewed hundreds of police documents, such as arrest paperwork, notes, and disciplinary records, and also reviewed photographs, videos, and hundreds of additional documents from non-police sources.

Investigators reviewed all 911 calls associated with the event, as well as all car-to-car radio transmissions and photographs. The county’s Crime Laboratory also analyzed the event data recorder, which is known as the “black box,” of a Jeep that Cruz had stolen on Feb. 23 and was driving at the time of his apprehension by the police in the early morning of Feb. 24.

Investigators also reviewed surveillance video from a Mobil gas station where the stolen Jeep collided with a police vehicle and “extensively reviewed” bodycam video, which the police previously made public, Sini’s office said. The DA’s office also examined dash-camera video from a responding police officer, back-seat video of Cruz as the police transported him to St. Charles Hospital, and video footage a civilian recorded.

An independent police use of force expert, who had no prior relationship with the DA’s office or the police, was also used in the investigation.

The investigation revealed that earlier in the day on Feb. 23, St. Charles Hospital had released Cruz after detoxification treatment and he obtained cans of hairspray from a local store, Sini’s office said, adding that a Port Jefferson Station resident later found several empty hairspray cans, as well as Cruz’s personal property in her unlocked car on Oakland Avenue.

Down the road from where the empty hairspray cans were discovered, Cruz found an unlocked Jeep Grand Cherokee with its key fob inside and drove it away, Sini’s office said.

Officers found Cruz driving the Jeep and pursued him, and in the course of his flight, the Jeep collided with two police vehicles, and one of the collisions occurred as Cruz drove through a Mobil gas station, Sini’s office said, adding that the gas station’s surveillance camera had recorded the event. The other collision happened on Canal Road in Coram, where Cruz’s vehicle ultimately got stuck in the snow “after driving dangerously close to police officers on foot,” Sini’s office said.

SCPD officers broke the Jeep’s window to remove Cruz and handcuffed him while he was on the ground, and in police bodycam video that began recording Cruz after he had been handcuffed and turned onto his back, an officer pushed Cruz’s face twice to the side while he was handcuffed and on the ground, Sini’s office said. The officer subsequently indicated he was moving Cruz’s face to avoid being spit on, according to Sini.

An officer then brought Cruz to his feet, restraining him by holding the back of his coat, and while Cruz was standing up, being held by the officer, “Cameron moved behind him, kicked Cruz in his right calf, and pushed him in the back,” Sini’s office said. His actions caused Cruz to “pitch forward, breaking out of the other officer’s grasp” and Cruz then turned toward the officer who had been holding him and uttered an obscenity, his office said.

After Cruz left the officer’s grasp, several officers moved to secure him again, Sini’s office said, adding “an officer grappled with him and took him to the ground, yelling: ‘he’s fighting again,’ which one officer said that he heard as Cruz ‘was biting again.’”

“In the video, an officer can also be heard yelling ‘stop resisting,’ and seconds later, the officer who had brought Cruz to the ground announced, ‘All right, all right. It’s done,’” Sini’s office said.“The entire incident, from the time that Cameron kicked Cruz’s calf and pushed him to the time that another officer stated ‘it’s done,’ took about 12 seconds, as reflected by the video evidence.”

Cruz has alleged that he was assaulted throughout the incident and the kicks caused him “substantial pain,” according to Sini’s office. The officers all denied assaulting Cruz and asserted any application of force was intended “to subdue and secure” Cruz following a dangerous police chase and his resistance to apprehension,” Sini’s office said.